


Man Without Sleep

by GrayJay



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:16:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s been up for fifty hours and counting, not including the popcorn pops of sleep when he stopped paying attention at the office, seconds lost in tiny jolts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man Without Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/725.html?thread=806869#cmt806869

Matt’s not tired.

He’s been up for fifty hours and counting, not including the popcorn pops of sleep when he stopped paying attention at the office, seconds lost in tiny jolts.

Still. He’s okay. He’s--good, really. Numb, anyway, which is close enough. Clearheaded, even after the giddy invulnerability of hours thirty-six to forty has worn down into grim momentum.

Momentum is enough.

Foggy is talking, and the words don’t coalesce into sentences, just hang in the air, singular, scintillating like stars. Matt coasts. Matt nods.

He could do this forever.

On the rooftops, Matt runs like a clockwork man, empty, inexhaustible. Gets lost in the rhythm of his footfalls, and misses a jump by a step; and when he slams down on the fire escape below, he lies there for a moment, because it feels like his brain is floating unmoored in his skull, and he can feel the iron vibrating all the way down into the sidewalk. His body is heavy and buoyant at once, and he can taste copper and the iron of the grate beneath his mouth, and he realizes he must have nodded off for a moment; and it’s a good thing he was already down here, then. Gotta pull it together. Everything is dull, and he can hear the creak and grind of cracked ribs as he stands and stretches, but the pain is distant, depersonalized. Everything is distant. Matt’s focus is a laser, singular and tight. There’s a noise in the alley below, and he drops down, silent, to investigate, creeps against the wall, and he can’t remember _why_. A rat notices him, jumps to attention and scurries into a dumpster.

Matt walks, runs, listens, leaps. His ribs are throbbing a slow backbeat, and his skin is rubber, and everything glides around him. He drifts on the sound of a humming A/C unit, and he almost misses another jump, catches himself at the last moment with a stomach-wrenching jolt that drags him back to high alert; but even then, everything is muted, the world on fire reduced to a dull smoulder. The city mumbles and melts around him, and Matt’s not tired Matt’s so tired Matt can’t stop.

He can feel dawn seeping in, warm. It must be close to six, and he’s making his way home without thinking about it, half tumbling through the window (it must have been the window, he’d never go in the door in costume, but he doesn’t remember opening it). It doesn’t matter. He strips off the costume and drags himself into the shower, cold as he can stand, because there are things to do, and Matt is the only one who can do them.

He’s not tired.

In the office, everything is a little too loud and sharp, and Matt can’t focus on anything. Foggy’s voice is sandpaper and Karen’s is broken glass; and maybe that’s why Foggy can sneak up on Matt like he does, all the way to his side, and put a hand on his shoulder before Matt knows he’s there. Matt swings and grabs his wrist-- _too hard_ , he thinks, even as he’s doing it, drops it, but Foggy’s heart is racing, fluttering like a frightened bird.

“I’m sorry,” Matt says. His tongue is too thick in his mouth, and the words trickle and drip like molasses. “Oh, God, Foggy, I’m so sorry. It’s just been--it’s been a weird week. I’m kind of on edge, I’m--I’m sorry.” There’s something else he’s supposed to say, he remembers. His thoughts are so slow, and he stacks words like precarious dominos. “Are you okay?”

“Am I--” Foggy’s voice is ball bearings on steel, velcro rubbed the wrong way. “Matt, you look like you’ve been through a meat grinder.”

“Oh,” says Matt. He licks his lips and tastes copper, and everything is dull and swollen. Reaches up and touches his face, and feels bruises, a scrape along one cheekbone that he gives an experimental prod, but it feels like someone else’s face, dull, blank. “Sorry.”

“Matt,” says Foggy. Matt can smell the sour cream and onion chips Foggy has been eating. His jacket smells like vinegar and petroleum and wool and the subway and Karen’s perfume and Foggy’s deodorant, and Matt has to fight back a sudden, violent wave of nausea.

“Sorry,” he says, again, because it’s the only word he can remember.

“Matt,” Foggy says, again. Hand on Matt’s face, gentle, turning his head. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Matt tries to think, but it’s too hard, so he shrugs. “Monday? I don’t know.”

“ _Matt_.” Foggy’s voice goes soft, tar and silk, and Matt can feel his own pulse pounding through his head. Maybe he has a concussion. Maybe that’s why the world is so elastic and strange and none of his senses work.

Foggy is pulling him up to standing, and Matt leans into him, because he’s warm, because he’s there. Lets Foggy lead him halfway out of the office before he thinks to ask, “Where are we going?”

“Home,” says Foggy. “We’re going home, and you’re going to bed.”

“Oh,” says Matt. He starts to tell Foggy that he’s fine, that he’s not tired, but it doesn’t really seem like it matters anymore, and they’re already halfway down the stairs anyway. He can’t remember whether he has his keys. He definitely doesn’t have his briefcase, or his cane; and he gropes, panicked, for a moment, before Foggy presses the familiar weight into his hand.

“You can’t keep doing this, buddy,” Foggy tells him in the cab. Matt slumps against his shoulder: all his momentum has fled at once, and his bones are lead, and everything aches. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Mm,” Matt hums into Foggy’s arm. He’s not sure if he’s saying no or yes, or if it matters. By the time Matt has worked out which pocket his wallet is in, Foggy has already paid the driver, and he’s bundling Matt out. The stairs are steeper than usual, their irregularities chasms and cliffs and mountains. Matt stumbles again and again, and he can’t catch his breath, and he doesn’t know where his keys are; but it doesn’t matter, because Foggy has keys, and Foggy can fit them into the door and make all the tumblers fall into comforting place. Matt stands, swaying, as Foggy pulls off his coat one arm at a time; then corrals him into the bedroom, sits him down, and unlaces his shoes. Matt starts to make a token protest, but Foggy ignores him, gets him down to boxers and a t-shirt. His hand brushes against a cracked rib, and this time, Matt _feels it_ , sharp edges and splinters and grinding like glass, and recoils, curling in on himself.

“Hey,” says Foggy. “Hey. It’s okay.” His hands come back, but gentler, peeling back Matt’s shirt. “Jesus, Matt.”

“I’m okay,” Matt tries to tell him, but his mouth is clumsy, and what comes out isn’t even really words. His apartment is cold, even though he can feel the sun through the window, and he can’t stop shivering.

“I know, buddy,” says Foggy. Reaches down and brushes Matt’s hair back off his forehead, and the gesture is so simple and so _kind_ that Matt loses it, bursts into tears.

“Oh, Matty.” Foggy sounds so sad, and Matt wants to tell him it’s okay, he’s okay, he’s just tired, but he can’t stop crying. Foggy’s weight shifts, and then he’s on the mattress next to Matt, pressed against his back, one arm across Matt’s shoulders. Foggy is warm and soft, and he smells familiar, and Matt can feel his heartbeat, slow and steady, anchoring Matt to the bed when he feels like he’s about to float away.

Matt is baffled by his own body, by the sobs that won’t stop even though he’s _okay_ , he _knows_ he’s okay, and he tries to explain to Foggy; but Foggy just holds him, and gradually Matt feels his own breathing slow to match Foggy’s. He feels drained, utterly and completely: his body is sand and air, and Foggy is rubbing his back in slow circles.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he tells Matt, and Matt hums assent and turns over; and he’s not even done burying his face against Foggy’s shoulder before he’s out.


End file.
